2nd Duke of Bedford

John Russell, 4th Duke of Bedford (see here),
Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland 1756-61,
Chancellor of TCD, portrait in Provost's House,
the Bedford Tower in Dublin Castle is after him,
had issue:

Francis Russell, Marquess of Tavistock,
mar Lady Elizabeth Keppel [descendant of Charles II] and had issue:

John Russell, 6th Duke of Bedford,
Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland 1806-7,
had issue:

Rt Hon Lord John Russell, 1st Earl Russell (and here and here), born 1792,
Prime Minister 1846-52 and 1865-6,
presided over the Irish Famine 1845-50 in which 1 million Irish died, and the population was nearly halved by death and emigration, while food continued to be exported from the country and rent continued to be extorted from the starving people,
died 1878,
had issue:

John Russell, Viscount Amberley, born 1842,
mar Katherine Stanley [descendant of James II, see descent by Leo van de Pas],
she died 1874,
he died 1876 (see his deathbed),
had issue:

1. Bertrand Russell, 3rd Earl Russell (and here and here and here and here),
   the famous mathematician, philosopher and atheist,
   born 1872, educ Trinity College, Cambridge,
   Nobel Prize for Literature 1950,
   died 1970.
   See biographies here and here.

• The Irish Famine, 1845-50
  • Most famines are caused by politics not nature (e.g. the 20th century Communist famines of Russia and China), and this was no different. Caused by a combination of vicious religious-based 17th and 18th century dispossession, reducing the population to serfdom, forced to pay constant rent and tithes merely to exist, followed then by unyielding 19th century laissez-faire with no state intervention and no welfare (as if there was some kind of fair competition going on), it meets the criteria of the killing by "democide" of 1 million Irish people by Britain. It stands as the greatest crime ever committed by Britain against any other nation in its long history.

    It also stands as one of capitalism's great failures. How could capitalism cause a famine? One answer is that the capitalism was brand new, and the famine more reflects the culmination of two centuries of anti-capitalist restrictions on commerce, trade, education, land and property ownership, and so on. Also noted is that British rule in Ireland was not democratic at this point, which meant that no serious state response to the famine could be demanded.

• For Bertrand Russell's possible descent from The Prophet Muhammad see here.

• Hastings Russell, 12th Duke of Bedford (then the Marquess of Tavistock) was a notorious British "pacifist" / anti-semite / fascist-sympathiser of the 1930s and WW2.

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